


Latent Lateral Bicuspids and their effect on Sleep Deprivation

by whirlingdervish



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 04:34:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10891797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whirlingdervish/pseuds/whirlingdervish
Summary: Rosie is teething. John takes a walk.No Beta. Mistakes are mine, the characters are not.





	Latent Lateral Bicuspids and their effect on Sleep Deprivation

      It hadn’t been raining when John bundled his keening, teething toddler into her puffy purple jacket and stalked off into the night with her. The brisk air outside had the desired effect and startled Rosie into silence, chilling her tear streaked cheeks. John had an idea that if he just walked fast enough he could outrun it. He couldn’t pace the floors with her another minute- it made him feel like a caged animal prowling along the glass. No he needed a direction to walk, needed the sounds of the city, the cool night air. Most of all he needed a distraction from the building irrational fury at his darling child and her incessant wails. Nothing he had tried seemed to soothe her at all. Medicine, chewy toys, the flannel he had soaked and froze, even the ridiculous amber teething necklace that Molly had given him didn’t seem to make an iota of difference. He had in the last several weeks put her in her cot and closed the door and walked away, but she never seemed to cry it out and the crying tore at him. This late night, now early morning, stroll was his last attempt to keep sane.

  
      It seemed to be working too, the steady gait had lulled Rosie into kind of a stupor, one small fist gripping his coat while she smeared boogies on the front of his shirt, but she was blessedly quiet. It only took about 20 minutes for her to fall asleep, warm against his chest and by then he’d made it surprisingly far from home. When he stopped to look around and plan his way back Rosie began to stir again, winding back up for a long cry. John juggled her in his arms for a few moments, but in the end decided to keep walking to lull her back to sleep. He let his mind wander, meander to those places he seldom let himself dwell. The doors he had slammed shut and locked behind him, bridges burned, promises he had broken.

  
     It was almost a relief when the clouds that loomed heavily overhead finally burst, tearing him from his scattered and dismal thoughts. The relief was fleeting however, as Rosie woke with a start and wailed.

  
      “Shit!” He cursed, trying to shield his daughter with his coat, but it proved difficult so he ducked into the nearest bus shelter and tried to soothe her.   
      Where even was he? John checked the posted schedule, but no buses were due any time soon, so when he saw a rare cab with its light on, John wondered if perhaps his luck might just hold out for one bloody night. He raised his hand, ears aching from Rosie’s hoarse cries and praised God when the black Prius rolled to a stop at the curb.  
He shuffled quickly inside, fat raindrops sliding down the back of his neck into his shirt collar. The car was instantly warm and steamy. John closed his eyes as Rosie began to settle again, curiously surveying her new surroundings.

  
     “Where to?” The cabbie asked over the relentless drumming of rain and the squeak of wipers. Warm at last and so tired John leaned his head against the back of the seat.

 

     Sherlock wasn’t sleeping when he heard the knock on the door and he decidedly did not fall off the sofa in his frantic attempt to deduce his late night visitor. It was raining so the knocking was urgent. Not a client though, didn’t ring the bell, suggesting that it was someone who knew Sherlock would be awake but Mrs. Hudson would be sleeping. Then above the rain he heard the plaintive wail of a young child. The pieces slotted neatly into place as Sherlock whispered “Oh!”

  
     John knocked again, slightly more urgently.

  
     Sherlock scrambled to his feet and thundered down the stairs at a rather frantic clip, barely able to keep his balance. He threw the door open.

  
     “John!”

  
     There on the doorstep of 221B stood a very wet and exhausted John Watson, looking strikingly similar to a drowned cat, and resting on his right hip was a very wet and very angry eighteen month old Rosamund Mary.

  
     “It’s past 1 in the morning, what are you doing here? Is Watson ill?” Sherlock asked, his voice inadvertently betraying his worry.

  
     Rosie pitched herself toward Sherlock, reaching out with very small, very cold hands, and Sherlock had to dive forward under the dripping eaves to pluck her from John’s arms.

  
     “Not ill, no. Not yet, anyway.” John admitted, his hair plastered to his brow.

  
      “Come in,” Sherlock ordered.

  
     “What is your daddy thinking, hm?” Sherlock muttered to Rosie as he smoothed back her wet blonde curls with one enormous hand and Rosie sucked desolately on her two favorite fingers and nestled against the dry warmth of his chest. “That’s right,” he soothed and her whimpering subsided, “Best not wake Hudders, she doesn’t like to be woken after she's had her nightly soother.”

  
     John managed to grin at that, but didn’t say anything as he followed Sherlock up the seventeen steps to the flat. A loud peal of thunder rumbled outside.

  
     “Why didn’t you just use your key?” Sherlock asked as they entered the kitchen. John stuffed his hands into his damp jeans pocket and examined his shoes.

  
     “I- erm.” John floundered, “I hadn’t actually planned on coming here. I was walking to get her tired out, but it started to rain. I fell asleep in the cab… I must have told him your address by mistake.”

  
     “Oh.” Sherlock said, his tone carefully neutral.

  
     “And I don’t have a key… anymore.”

  
     “No?”

  
     “I sort of threw it into the Thames… after Mary-” John admitted, still apparently fascinated by his brogues.

  
     The admission stung and Sherlock’s eyebrows drew together for a moment before he carefully schooled his expression again. As much as Sherlock wanted to forget that period in their lives, he couldn’t. He wouldn’t allow himself to. He kept it close, not out of spite, but as a reminder of how very much he had to lose. John’s letter was all but nailed to the door of his mind palace.

  
     “I see.”

  
     They regarded one another for a long moment, Rosie sucking noisily on her fingers. John’s expression was conflicted, flashing between embarrassment and cautious optimism. John Watson wasn’t supposed to look unsure. Sherlock found it hateful.

  
     “Look, Sherlock-”

  
     “We can have another made-“

  
      They spoke at the same time. John chuckled and turned away, running a hand through his wet hair. Sherlock felt heat rise to his cheeks.

  
     “I’m sorry,” John sighed, kneading his brow. “I just turn up here in the middle of the night. I don’t even have nappies for Rose. I should probably just go back home.”

  
     “Nonsense,” Sherlock waved his hand dismissively, retreating into his bedroom. “You’re already here. Stay the night.”

  
     “But Rosie…”

  
     Sherlock reappeared with a diaper bag in one hand and Rosie still clinging to his shirt on his hip.

  
     “I took the liberty of packing an emergency bag,” He said, and then seeing John’s gob smacked expression worried if maybe this counted as over stepping and tried to back pedal. “For Mrs. Hudson. You know, if we got caught up on a case or something… clothes might be too big, I wasn’t anticipating needing it so soon.”

     John stared. He knew he shouldn’t but he couldn’t help it. He knew it was ridiculous, and maybe the exhaustion was partly to blame but he felt his eyes start burning as he watched his best friend, in bare feet, with his daughter’s drool spreading a dark patch on his gray tee shirt, offering him – what exactly? It was more than a change of clothes for Rosie. It was infinitely more.

  
     “Ta,” He said, clearing his throat, and blinking away the vapor of impending tears. He took the strap of the bag, shoulders it, and then reaches for Rosie, who nestles deeper again Sherlock and babbles in protest and John extracts her and carries her to the sofa while Sherlock returned to the kitchen.

  
     “Come on sweetheart,” John muttered laying her on the sofa and kneeling beside her. She immediately began to twist over onto her belly and try to escape, but practiced hands quickly shucked her damp clothing, and spoiled nappy and had her in a fresh diaper that smelled of baby powder and into a soft pink sleeper with an elephant on it. It was a bit too long in the arms and legs but Rosie was quite comfortable. John on the other hand…

  
     “I don’t suppose you could watch her for a bit?” John asked as Sherlock came into the room, “I should shower and change.” Of course John already had clothes here, or at least he hoped. He hadn’t actually stayed over since before Mary died, and he sincerely hoped Sherlock hadn’t seen fit to toss them into the river. Not that John would have blamed him.

  
     Rosie had slid on her belly off of the sofa and was toddling across the room toward Sherlock.

  
     “Of course, John.” Sherlock said as he scooped the little girl up.

     When John was finished showering and dressed in clean, worn flannel pajamas he ambled out to find his daughter and his best friend, but the flat was strangely quiet. The clock in the kitchen said it was almost two o clock.

  
     “Sherlock?”

  
     “In here,” Sherlock answered from his chair.

  
     “Where is Rosie?”

  
     “In your room in a fold away cot.” He replied, and then added, “Mrs. Hudson…”

  
     “Right. Ya,” John nodded, “well thank God for her, huh?”

  
     Sherlock smiled, and looked into the empty fireplace, the smile not quite reaching his eyes. Mrs. Hudson, John thought incredulously. Perhaps he could write this off as one of those times when Sherlock had an uncanny knack of being able to predict things, like the time he had known two weeks ahead of time which therapist he would choose. Bone-deep John knew that wasn’t case. He knew two things with absolute certainty- the first was that Sherlock Holmes was the most amazing man he would ever meet, and second, John Watson absolutely did not deserve his friendship. Not after everything.

  
     “Thank you.” John said, and Sherlock looked back at him, eyebrow quirked. “I mean, for letting us invade your home like this.”

  
     “It’s your home too,” Sherlock said his tone deliberately dismissive, “even if you’ve lost your key.”

  
     They chuckled.

  
      “I had better get to bed,” John said, “I don’t know how long she’ll give me… I have to take it when I can you know.”

  
     “Good night, John.”  
 


End file.
